I was feeling oatmeal this morning, but…

I couldn’t resist this fresh-baked loaf of Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat hubby picked up yesterday (ok it’s like a day old, but it’s pretty darn fresh!)

I ended up with toast with real butter, a fried cage free egg and half an organic orange.

With nice, hot coffee of course.

Bailey was looking so cute today. I had to take some photos.

Hot tulsi tea (no sweetener) in Chai Masala.

I was on phone conferences during lunch, so I just grabbed some random stuff.

An Amy’s veggie burger and some pretzels (because I was craving something salty).

Edamame

Great Harvest toast with Earthfare Organic Pomegranate jelly and chia seeds.

I took care of some giveaway packages (been procrastinating on these…not gonna lie. Sorry! Things have just been so crazy around here lately!). While I still need to officially announce winners, I’ve got a few packages packed up and ready to drop off for delivery. yay!

I snacked on one of Julie’s Chai Tea Scones while I worked on my bloggie projects.

Salad for dinner – baby romaine, sunflower seeds, Drew’s Rosemary Balsamic dressing.

Pizza for dinner! I had 1 1/2 slices of cheese with bell pepper and red onion and 1 slice of cheese.

Hubby even picked up some panna cotta gelato for dessert. Yum yum!

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I have to work an hour-ish away from town and be there at 8am, so it’s going to be an early morning for me. Eek! Did I mention I still have to pack? Yup, the bad news is that I have to commute nearly 2 hours tomorrow. The good news is that it’s on the way to see hubby’s mom. We’re visiting her this weekend and I’ve got a bloggie meet-up planned, too! Fun fun!

I have several posts and pages in the work, and I finally completed one this week…

Check out my new Plateware page (click to view)!

By the way, since ladies figure skating is on tonight, I thought I’d mention…did you guys know I used to ice skate? Yep…here’s proof. Ok, rusty proof, but still…lol

So, the figure skating fan in me cannot pry myself away from the TV. Though I have to be up far earlier than normal, I can’t stop watching. Gah!

What are you up to this weekend?

The Chic Life has a new look! What do you think of my bloggie makeover? Not too shabby, eh? I would hope not considering how many hours (and hours and hours) I poured into it over the weekend.

I’ll go into the nitty gritty of how I moved my blog another day…maybe this weekend?

For now, I want to C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E!!!!!!!!!!

What better way to celebrate than with a giveaway?

Since I’m feeling generous, I’m offering three different prizes for three different winners! More chances to win is always a plus, no?

Most of you guys know I make jewelry (under my biz name D Celestine).

I put a little something together just for you my dear readers.

On the to the swag!

Option #1 – A Handmade Sterling Silver and Onyx Gemstone Necklace

This necklace has a modern touch with a hammered oval as part of the pendant. This classic style necklace with a modern twist would look great with any outfit!

The jewelry may be shipped to either the US or Canada.

Option #2 – A Pair of Handmade Sterling Silver and Rainbow Crystal Earrings

These little dazzlers would add a punch of fun to any outfit. The rainbow crystal color makes these earrings go with almost any color!

The jewelry may be shipped to either the US or Canada.

Option #3 – A Batch of Dreena’s Homestyle Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

You don’t have to be vegan to fall in love with these cookies! Trust me, I’m a meat eater and I’m a big fan of them!

These can only be shipped to the US.

Giveaway Details

• Entries accepted for one week – till next Thursday, February 4th, 2010.
• Each entry must be entered as a separate comment to count.
• Winners will be selected randomly.
• First winner selected will have choice of the 3 options.
• Second winner selected will have choice of the remaining two.
• Third winner selected will receive the remaining prize (if the remaining prize is the cookies and you live in Canada, I will work out a different jewelry gift – I can’t afford to ship the cookies to Canada…sorry!).
• The jewelry may be shipped to either the US or Canada.
• The cookies can only be shipped to the US.
• Winner will be notified via email.
• If winner doesn’t respond within 48 hours of when the email notification went out, another winner will be selected.

Five Fabulous Ways to Enter

• Leave a comment on this post saying which item you’d like to win and where you think I should eat out once my Eat in Month challenge is over.
• Blog about and link to this contest.
• Tweet about and link to this contest.
• Add The Chic Life (the new URL) to your blogroll/link list (or update the link to my new URL).
• Subscribe to my NEW blog feed. (or update your current subscription to the new site).

IMPORTANT – for each entry, leave a separate comment. Your entries must be in separate comments for them to count.

That’s it! Simple, no? Now, who wants to win some free stuff?!

The first half of the day was about as busy as normal, but we had so much to do after work.

I had plans to make an important trip just after work to visit an office that closed at 5:30pm. Of course, the meeting that was supposed to end at 5pm ended late, so I totally missed my visit! Grr…wouldn’t have been so upset if I hadn’t been putting the trip off all week because I couldn’t fit it into my work schedule.

I stopped by Trader Joe’s to pick up stuff for dinner.  You should have seen my basket…I swear, if it weren’t for the sour cream I bought, you-da thought I was vegan (or at least vegetarian) ! lol I had soy creamer, veggie masala burgers, and other good stuff in my basket.

I was starving by the time I got home and started on dinner immediately – Beef Strogonaff! For the first time, instead of mincing my mushrooms, I sliced them up and even added more than usual. Perhaps I am starting to like them after all these years?

I love how easy beef strongonaff is. I wish it cooked up faster, but at least the easy part is a score.

I normally serve my beef strogonaff over egg noodles, but we were out!  Who knew? 

I decided bowties were the next closest thing around. Paprika and parsley are the perfect garnish.

Round 2 – not as pretty, just as tasty

Bailey was sleepy all night…must be the weather

While I worked on a jewelry order post-dinner….

Hubby played Santa Claus delivering our hot cocoa mix and cookies to some friends.

I snacked on some of our treats – an Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookie…

…a piece of Cookies and Cream bark…

…and a handmade caramel.

Hubby and I are thinking of making chocolates for Christmas next year. I think that’s pretty awesome!

As if we hadn’t done enough in the day, we had plans to visit my fam this weekend. With reports that icy/snowy weather would hit town in the morning, we decided to take a late trip out of town.

After leaving work (later than expected), grocery shopping, cooking dinner, delivering gifts, and making a jewelry order, we still had to pack and hit the road.

It was 11pm by the time we got in the car, but we were worried about not being able to go at all if we didn’t leave when we did.  We made it to my parent’s house safe and sound, though quite tired.

Phew!

How many trips will you be making to visit friends and family for the holidays?

My good friend Courtney was kind enough to think of me for an event where she thought I could sell some jewelry.

The event was inside the super chic salon where she works.

I set up inside the “nail room.”

I had my booth setup and lookin pretty good, but alas…I made no sales. Talk about Jewelry Show FAIL! And at no fault of Courtney’s or the salons…guess the recession is just really hitting people.

I drowned my sorrow in chocolate and wine. I had all these M&Ms and a small glass of red wine. I never made it to the white…it was given to me accidentally.

After the show, we went out to a tapas restaurant/bar called blue where Courtney wanted to have some drinks and so some birthday dancing. See, my visit to Courtney was twofold: 1. jewelry show 2. celebrate Courtney’s b-day.

It was late by the time we got to the restaurant but I still wanted dinner, so once we found a table in the bar area, I got a caprese salad and crabcakes. The lighting inside was non-existent, so after seeing my first photo was pretty awful, I decided to not try to shoot the crabcakes. It was all very good, though, and I was happy to work some extra veggies into the day’s eats.

I crashed at Courtney’s place and met her son William when we got home later that night. He was awake with grandma. I forgot to ask if it was ok to post photos of him, so here he is without a good facial shot (I should have asked because that boy is a cutie pie!).

Poor William was not a happy camper that night and screamed all night long. One may think the screaming child would deter me from wanting children but he was so darn cute, I’d say meeting him tilted me in the other direction.

In the AM, I had some coffee in a hilarious mug.

Breakfast: plain bagel toasted – 1/2 with strawberry cream cheese and 1/2 with plain organic cream cheese.

The weather around lunchtime was gorgeous!

I decided to revisit a new fave at lunch from Jason’s Deli.

Steamed veggies, French onion soup, Turkey Reuben – oh so good…all of it! Esp that tangy flavor on the sammie.

Hubby had a treat waiting for me at home. He knew I’d had a rough jewelry show, so he got me a little treat – donuts from a local bakery. I had mine with some 2% organic milk from Earthfare.

Oh yea! A sweet ending to a rough show. Hey, at least I got some QT with my good friend Courtney and got to meet her son. I’ll call that a WIN!

So behind on everything lately it seems! I have tons of comments to respond to, blog posts to write, de-cluttering to do, flashcards to study…phew!

This past Sunday (yesterday), I tried to multi-task to the best of my ability and decided to take some “me time” to start clearing out my DVR list (which seems to forever be 100% complete). I watched What Would Brian Boitono Cook (a little cheesey, but the figure skater in my LOVED it…and of course, Brian is amazing…the show made me wish he was my friend so we could hang out and cook and talk skating and foodie stuffs) and a DVR’ed Cold Case PLUS I caught a live Cold Case re-run, sans DVR.

While I caught up my TV shows, I made and prepared a jewelry order for my biz D Celestine.

I made a pair of my Tiki Chici earrings. I think these would make AWESOME beach earrings!

Dinner was easy as pie, but I was disappointed by my veggie. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE peas, but I had picked up some brussels sprouts earlier in the day from TJ’s and as I prepped them, they had all these icky black spots all over them – some that seemed to go to the deepest layer (I was trying to just peel off the outside layers after trimming the bottom).

My frozen green peas saved the day. They microwaved up quite nicely.

Yummy white wine & herb rotisserie chicken breast from The Fresh Market . I re-heated this in the oven at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes, wrapped in aluminum foil. It wasn’t quite enough time, but I was hungry, so I zapped the chicken in the microwave briefly to bring up the heat.

One of those Virginia Rolls from Great Harvest from the Animal Kneads event earlier in the day served as my carb.

Make that two rolls…with a little dab of real butter.

I mean LOOK at it! Could you resist this fresh-baked, tender, deliciousness? I think not.

Anywho, late phone conference tomorrow, but hoping to catch up on comments soon at least. Have a great week!